Among the artifacts recovered was a small female fertility figurine, dubbed a “Venus figurine.” (Figure 2.10a, 2.10b, 2.10c, 2.10d). The one found at Dolni Vestonice was a diminutive, 10-centimeter-tall figurine of baked clay depicting a woman with a faceless, helmet-like head with slit eyes and a vertical stroke for the nose. The rest of the body is more realistic, with pendulous breasts and fat tummy. Though the shoulders are articulated the arms disappear into the body. The legs are well defined and, though broken, probably ended in a rounded point. The image could not stand on its own and was either meant to be carried or placed in a hole. It is quite possible that the images were painted in reds and blacks.
These figurines have nothing to do with Venus, the ancient goddess of love. The nickname was given to them by late nineteenth-century archaeologists. How they were used is not known, but they are clearly a testament to the broad emergence of ritual and devotional practices among hunter societies beginning around 33,000 bce. That at least is the date of the oldest one yet recovered, the Venus of Hohle Fels found near Schelklingen, Germany. Made from a mammoth tusk, it represents a woman with large, protruding breasts and a small head. By the time of the Gravettian period such figurines were quite common. Several were found that were painted with ochre or other colors. They were probably fertility symbols, but did hunters
Use them as good luck charms? Were they associated with particular places? Could anyone make them, or were they made by craftsmen—or more likely craftswomen—who possessed ritual-enhanced powers? Many figurines have been found in clusters in cave sites, perhaps indicating the special significance of that particular site. At an encampment in Kostenki Russia, figurines were found throughout the hut, about 17 in all. Were they used to sanctify the interior? Why were some of the figurines buried in shallow pits near the hearths?
The Dolnl Vestonice Venus is particularly unusual as it was made of fired clay. Most others were made of ivory, stone, or mammoth bone.10 It was also, and significantly, made at Dolnl Vestonice itself in a hut that had a kiln at its center. The hut, about 100 meters to the west of the settlement, was partially dug into the side of the hill. Wooden beams resting on the berm at the back were supported by a set of posts at the front. The entrance was from the eastern side.11 The hut was clearly a center for figurine production, for in addition to the figurine, archaeologists found small carvings of animals—bears, lions, mammoths, horses, foxes, rhinos, and owls—and over 2,000 balls, all of burnt clay. That the hut was set up some distance from the main camp certainly had something to do with its sacred function. Under the floor of the hut there was a tomb of a forty-year-old woman. Her body, strewn with red ochre, was covered with a mammoth bone. Why was she buried inside the hut? Was she the artisan?
World History
